Marks of Agony
by Pearl Winter
Summary: Soulmate fic - Betraying your soulmate by falling in love with someone else... it most often leads to murder. Minako has come to Gotham to protect her soulmate while he fights to protect the city. She knows he's in love with someone else, he knows she's loved someone else. When the two of them meet, marks are made.


Mark of Agony

Spawned by the despair and hate of Gotham's victims, the monsters had begun to appear almost overnight. Spinning around with a cry, Sailor Venus sent her first attack at the monster's spine. It seemed however unlikely that she would be here to protect her soulmate and his lover from the very monsters they were unaware of. Minako twisted away from the monster as it ran at her in an attempt to shove her off the tall Wayne Tower building. Glancing to her left at the fight between mortals across the rooftops from her, Venus gathered herself to finish off her enemy when she saw him move.

The brazen images of an athlete flipping through the open air had brought the young woman named Minako to a halt. Her chest expanded and retracted without conscious thought as her enemy was able to recover from her attack. She saw his sweat-slicked dark hair fall across the edges of a black mask when he landed. He wasn't alone, his partner had slipped a pair of bolos into her hands and began to swirl the weapon around as the thugs they were fighting regrouped.

Barb, the name flooded her with a hatred and jealousy she powered into her next attack. A red-haired beauty that Rei had images of during meditation that explained the relationship between Dick and Barb. Drawing her hands down to her sides, the power she commanded began to take shape around her. Softly, the powerful words fell from her lips. "Venus Love and Beauty Shock."

Releasing the energy from her palm, the ball of power slammed into her enemy with enough force to push the monster into the rays of healing light that Usagi rained down on the world from the Moon Palace. The young women had re-purposed the decrepit palace into a base of operations that would send the girls to wherever they needed on Earth using the pathways provided by Elysian. Falling backward and out of position as the Moon Princess did her part, Venus turned back in the direction of Dick and Barb. The rage from before was still burning in her veins as she watched the other superheroes finish their own fight with a few more exchange of physical blows.

Her power sparked to life when she witnessed their closeness, the ease with which the two of them worked together. Venus stepped forward, lifting her right leg up to the edge of the building she was standing on as she watched them move away and into the shadows. The police were already arriving to deal with the criminals they'd captured and like all of Gotham's vigilantes, they knew when to make themselves scarce. Tracking the couple through her own powers, Minako jumped off the building without thinking about Artemis or the ray of light that would have taken her back to the palace. She knew in the back of their minds they'd be alarmed and would begin searching for her. That wasn't what she was concerned with at the moment.

Something held her back from her most powerful attack, though when she came across them the blonde saw red. They were not caught up in each other romantically however physically they were standing too close. Her last step came down with a crunch of gravel as Venus narrowed blue eyes on 'Barb' and lifted her hand. Dick barely saw her before the attack was launched.

"Crescent Beam!" The ray of light flew across the distance between Nightwing and Batgirl as Sailor Venus made herself known to them. The sailor scout dropped her hands to her sides from there, she glared at 'Barb'. "Keep your distance," she stated, blue eyes glinting under the dim alley lights as she felt a ripple of fire pass across her senses. Mars was close by then. Turning her head slightly to the right to glance at 'Dick'.

"Are you so ready to break my heart?" Minako asked, feeling her words to the core of her heart.

Line Break

The attack came from the shadows when Batgirl and he were forcefully separated by an energy beam cast by a golden-haired goddess. Dressed in orange and whites with a red bow in her hair, the attacker came out of the darkened space to stand beneath the alley lights. The grime on the buildings somehow disappeared in her presence as she spoke to first Batgirl and then him. It was her words that flattened his sense of the world to just her and he knew just who she was.

"Soulmate," he answered. As if he needed to personally taste those words when he responded to her statement. There too in his own heart was bitterness. "I moved on."

The words would forever be branded in his skin and Dick felt rage at her actions. Something about the way Batgirl backed up had Nightwing reaching for his escrima sticks when the golden-haired warrior flexed her fingers in an answer. Lifting a golden chain from around her waist, Dick glared back at her as Batgirl swung her head back and forth between them. Something seemed to indicate that they move because in one breath the pair of heroes launched themselves at each other. The escrima sticks met the golden chain with a clang of metal as the two of them strained against each other.

Breaking the stalemate, Dick tossed a pair of batarangs at his golden-haired soulmate in a futile effort to try and disarm her. He knew enough about her from his own dreams to know she was perfectly able to dodge them. 'Minako', that was what several of her friends called her in those dreams. He'd learned Japanese one year before he discovered her treacherous heart did not belong to him. At the time he'd begun to branch out as Nightwing, fight unendingly with Bruce, and for that, he held this female personally responsible for a broken future.

"How could you?" They both stated at the same time. Tears were in Minako's eyes as she stood there in front of him and though they had never met face to face, he felt her betrayal as deeply as she no doubt felt his. Soulmate betrayals had often led to a murder of one of the parties involved. Dick had thought she'd never come to Gotham, he'd been secure in the knowledge that she had given up on him when he moved on to loving Barbara.

"We could kill each other in the next ten minutes," Nightwing snapped, years of frustration spilling out into his voice.

Line Break

On the sidelines, Batgirl felt her heart thump against her ribs. She'd been aware that the man she loved was not hers, yet she had dared to hope he would never be confronted by his soulmate. Agony Marks appeared on the skin of those who have betrayed their soulmates. She and Nightwing both shared the same curse and had thought they'd be able to live past it. Happiness, at least, wasn't dependent on the soulmate bond. She could already see the black lines spreading out from beneath the collar of Nightwing's uniform and across his lower jaw. The same mark was beginning to mirror itself on the strange blonde's face. The words that marked them as belonging to the other took shape and the two of them would be recognizable to the world for a time. Slipping another pair of bolos into her hands, Batgirl began to twirl the weapon in her hands.

The blonde was able to use some kind of energy attack and Nightwing had been trained by Batman for years. The two of them could easily hurt bystanders if they were allowed to continue. Even with her heartbreaking, she knew what had to be done. A gloved hand appeared in her field of vision and a woman with long black hair stepped beside her. A compact was open in her hands and the woman spoke in Japanese to another person as Barbara stopped twirling the bolos. Something was going down and she _recognized_ her.

"Rei." she whispered, knowing the name was tantamount to her survival. A white cat jumped off the woman's shoulder and ran forward to skid to a halt between the two combantants.

The dark haired woman turned her head to look at Batgirl and gave her a soft knowing smile. " _Hai_."


End file.
